Helloworld staff to return

Helloworld staff to return

HELLOWORLD Travel Limited (HLO) expects to welcome back all of its existing personnel in 2021, initially on a part-time basis but ultimately full-time as quickly as possible through the year.

CEO Andrew Burnes told the Helloworld Annual General Meeting this morning that there are still 1,100 people on staff (down from 1,950), most of whom have been working part-time or stood down since Mar.

Burnes also noted that over 85% of the company’s agent members are still in business and are “now starting to see green shoots with a recovery in domestic travel, trans-Tasman travel and importantly international enquiries for travel in the latter part of 2021 and into 2022”.

He also said it was expected that Helloworld’s retail travel agencies will experience a “very significant increase in demand in 2021,” because their services will be in greater need given the complexities of travel in a post-COVID world.

Burnes added that the relative level of competition for Helloworld agents would be “dramatically reduced, given the recent announcements by some of our friendly competitors about the shrinkage of their own retail footprints in Australia and NZ”.

While HLO was expecting to continue to incur losses of up to $2 million per month at least until Mar 2021, the opening of domestic borders and also hope of some international travel bubbles could see the company close to a break-even position by the last quarter of the current financial year, Burnes said, saying he had a “renewed degree of optimism about the travel industry and about our business”.

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Source: traveldaily